I'll be disappointed if sneering Mourinho wins tonight... Giroud is hopeless, Arsenal could have had a better striker for FREE... Lerner must respect Villa's proud history

Anyone else going to feel disappointed if Jose Mourinho is successful at Old Trafford tonight?

He has plenty of trophies on his c.v. but he also has plenty of negatives. He once questioned a referee who then got death threats and decided to retire. So much for respect.

He poked his finger into an opposition coach’s eye on the touchline as part of a detailed plan to destabilise Barcelona at the height of their greatness.

His sneering and bold accusations of conspiracies and cheating against Real Madrid led to one of the greatest and most innovative coaches football has ever seen – Pep Guardiola – growing too tired to do the job any more.

Not everyone's favourite: There is plenty to dislike about Jose Mourinho, despite his phenomenal success

Mourinho has reportedly sent Tito Vilanova his best wishes but, for me, there is something deeply wrong with the amount of celebrating Real Madrid have done in the Barcelona faces after recent victories in El Clasico. Vilanova is in the USA having treatment for cancer.

If Real Madrid go through they will have deserved to go through I suppose, but I prefer people who love football to be winners, not people who depend on off-the- field nonsense as part of their tactics.

When Mertesacker was thrown up front towards the end of the game it was clear all innovation had gone out of the window and they were lumping it up to the lumps up front. Arsenal lost.

The previous day at Blackburn one of the Football League’s hottest properties right now, 5ft 9in Londoner Dwight Gayle, scored a hat-trick to lift my team Peterborough United off the bottom of the table. It was a perfect hat-trick: the first with his left-foot, the second with his head and the third with his right-foot.

Gayle, a 22-year-old pacy striker who feels his biggest strength is his finishing, could have been playing for Arsenal. He was with the Gunners as a schoolboy, but released at the age of 12 when the club told him he was too small, that he lacked height and strength.

Main man: Gayle scored a hat-trick against Blackburn as Peterborough climbed off the bottom of the Championship

That rejection led to Gayle losing interest in becoming a footballer, so he went from Arsenal to kicking a ball around with his mates until, at the age of 19, he started on a path that took him from Stansted (who of course are nicknamed the Airportmen) in the Essex Senior League, to being named the Championship player of the month last December.

The man who brought him into professional football, John Still (now Luton Town manager), believes he is definitely a Premier League player, but can’t say for certain if he is top four material.

Years after Gayle was told he was too
small, Arsenal paid £12m for Giroud. He’s big and he was ineffective in a
game that really mattered on Sunday.

I can’t say Dwight Gayle would
have done better. But I do know the person who made that decision on
12-year-old Gayle was basically saying he wouldn’t become a professional
footballer. He was very, very wrong.

What a shame Arsenal didn’t work
hard with a young player and turn him into their first homegrown English
star striker to come through under Wenger since... well there hasn’t
been one during Wenger’s reign.

The big clubs in England have a terrible recent record at producing strikers through their academies.

Only Manchester United’s Danny Welbeck currently stands out as a striker who has established himself at the top level at the club where he came through.

Man City gave up producing their own strikers in the 1980s – apart from Daniel Sturridge, who they couldn’t hold on to; Arsenal have to go back to Kevin Campbell in the early Ninetiess for a regular first-team striker through their youth system (Bendtner joined as a 16-year-old and isn’t very good), although Andy Cole came through the Gunners’ system but was allowed to leave after just two substitute appearances.

Rare breed: Danny Welbeck (left) and Daniel Sturridge are two of just a handful of homegrown English strikers

Chelsea gave us Carlton Cole and before that Tommy Langley in the 1970s but have Tottenham ever produced a top striker through their youth system? Peter Crouch I guess, but they let him go without a first team appearance after he graduated from the academy. They had to pay £10million to get him back. Mark Falco? Really?

There are success stories – I’m hopeful that Liverpool can still produce strikers like Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen, Everton gave English football Wayne Rooney, Newcastle deserve credit for producing decent Premier League strikers in Andy Carroll and Shola Ameobi.

All those have had an impact at the clubs where they came through (if you’re laughing at Ameobi’s inclusion check out his record against Sunderland – second only to Jackie Milburn).

Hero: The much-maligned Shola Ameobi has a phenomenal scoring record for Newcastle against Sunderland

The big clubs in England should be ashamed of their poor record of producing strikers. Do academy coaches really know what they’re doing?

If Aston Villa finish in the bottom three after 38 Premier League games they will deserve to go down.

But for me that is unthinkable and I believe owner Randy Lerner will have to take full responsibility. Villa are a huge club, and their European Cup win in 1982 remains for me the most amazing achievement of any club in the history of English football.

Champions in 1981, Villa went into Europe’s top competition as outsiders. Halfway through their campaign and after successive seasons where he had to sell star names and work on a reduced budget, manager Ron Saunders fell out with the board and quit, leaving the inexperienced Tony Barton in charge with a quarter final against Dynamo Kiev looming. Villa didn’t concede another goal in the tournament.

Celebration: Villa's Withe and Nigel Spink with the European Cup after their famous win over Bayern

The final in Rotterdam was ridiculous. Nine minutes in, keeper Jimmy Rimmer had to go off injured, making way for young Nigel Spink, who had played only one senior game prior to that night. Bayern Munich battered Villa, but Peter Withe shinned one in off the post for the only goal of the game.

Villa were European champions but not one of those players featured for England in the World Cup that summer. Incredible.

I wonder how much Lerner knows about that glorious run, or that famous final. How much does he know about Dennis Mortimer’s incredible leadership, Tony Morley flying down the wing, or Gary Shaw’s dynamism and finishing?

And if he knows about them why can’t he see how much Villa have been lacking those kind of players this season?

Dejection: Aston Villa are staring at relegation from the Premier League after a shocking season

Owners need to respect history first and foremost and maybe then managers won’t be left in a position where they are trying to steer a great club to safety with mainly inexperienced youngsters being asked to perform miracles beyond their capabilities.

ARSENAL'S INVINCIBLES THE BEST? CHELSEA'S CHAMPS WERE BETTER

I don’t need anyone to tell me I’m
right – it’s all about opinions after all - but I was delighted Gary
Neville shocked a few people when he declared that the
record-breaking Chelsea champions of 2005 were a better side than the
Arsenal Invincibles of the previous season.

Chelsea reached a stunning
95 points that season, five more than the Gunners, who drew their way to
that unbeaten record. Don’t believe me? Four of their last five games
were draws that season. They became a side that didn’t play to win. An
achievement, but they were massively overrated.

If
you think it’s an anti-Arsenal rant, then think again. That Chelsea
side wasn’t the best in Premier League history. Like Neville, I
believe Arsenal’s 1998 double winners (left) were better.